Cupcake Kasich is a (Rather Dull) Tyrant Enabler

by Selwyn Duke2/26/16
When Governor John Kasich said recently that he probably should be running in the Democrat Party, he wasn’t kidding. Although seeking office in Cuba might be even more fitting.

Taking a break from lecturing us on how we must accept amnesty, the presidential contender recently weighed in on the case of the Oregon bakers fined $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a faux wedding. Mentioned briefly in Thursday’s GOP presidential debate, here are his comments, made on Monday at the University of Virginia:

I think, frankly, our churches should not be forced to do anything that’s not consistent with them. But if you’re a cupcake maker and somebody wants a cupcake, make them a cupcake. Let’s not have a big lawsuit or argument over all this stuff — move on. The next thing, you know, they might be saying, if you’re divorced you shouldn’t get a cupcake.

Now, Kasich is a man who just loves the idea of moving on. After the Obergefell v. Hodges decision last June, he said that recognition of faux marriage was “the law of the land and we’ll abide by it” and that now “it’s time to move on.” It’s no wonder Republicans long ago move on from the idea of him as president.

Kasich managed to squeeze a remarkable number of misconceptions into his three sentences. First, while the cupcake lines may be cute to some and possess rhetorical flair, they’re nonsense. There’s not one Christian baker persecuted by governments recently who said he wouldn’t bake “cupcakes” or anything else for a given group; in fact, these businessmen have made clear that they serve homosexuals all the time. This isn’t about serving a certain type of people.

It’s about servicing a certain type of event.

Only someone who hasn’t bothered to ponder the matter deeply or who’s intellectually dishonest could miss this simple fact. And I’ll put it to you, Governor Kasich: can you cite any other time in American history when the government compelled a businessman to service an event he found morally objectionable? This is unprecedented. And is it really a road we want to go down?

If so, can the government compel a Jewish or black businessman to cater, respectively, a Nazi or KKK affair? How about a forcing a Muslim restaurateur to serve pork at an event for the National Pork Producers Council? Or is this another situation where government gets to pick winners and losers, this time in matters of conscience?

Of course, this is already happening, which brings us to Kasich’s divorcé cupcake eater. The proper analogy here doesn’t involve serving such a person because, again, the bakers in question serve homosexuals.

The proper analogy involves servicing an event celebrating a divorce.

Government wouldn’t even consider compelling participation in the above, or in events celebrating adultery, fornication, polygamy (yet) or auto-eroticism. So why the double standard? Well, homosexuals have very effective lobbying groups and millions of enablers — such as Cupcake Kasich.

Kasich‘s “churches should not be forced to do anything that’s not consistent with them. But…” comment is also interesting. Our First Amendment reads “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. For those who say this is only meant to restrain the central government’s legislature (and I’m sympathetic to this view), note that the constitution of Kasich’s own state dictates that no “interference with the rights of conscience be permitted.” And since he was commenting on a case involving Oregon residents, consider that the Beaver State’s constitution likewise reads, “No law shall in any case whatever control the free exercise, and enjoyment of religeous [sic] opinions, or interfere with the rights of conscience.”

Now, “exercise” is action; thus, at issue here isn’t just the freedom of religious belief, but of acting on that belief. Of course, there are limits in that we don’t allow practices such as human sacrifice. But anything considered legitimate action under these constitutions is allowed in churches. And here’s the point: none of these constitutions limit this free exercise to church property.

Thus, any type of exercise allowable in church is allowable outside of it.

So for this reason alone, the action against the Oregon bakers was unconstitutional. Since a person can refuse to be party to a faux wedding within a church, he can also refuse to be party to a faux wedding outside of it.

Interestingly, Kasich and others seem to be espousing a kind of “dual truth” philosophy, which I understand is part of Islamic theology. This basically states what what’s “religiously true” may not be true beyond the religious realm (whatever that’s supposed to be). But a moral issue doesn’t cease to be a moral issue because it moves down the block.

The action against the bakers is unconstitutional for another reason. Perhaps invariably, part of creating a wedding cake is placing a written message on it; in the case of faux weddings, this message would relate to faux marriage. Even two male figurines placed on top of the cake relate a message; note here that the courts have rule that symbolic speech is covered under the First Amendment. And where does the government have the constitutional power to compel people to be party to a message they find morally objectionable? Forced speech is not free speech.

Of course, none of this would be an issue if we accepted a principle even many conservatives today reject: freedom of association. Think about it: you have a right to include in or exclude from your home whomever you please, for any reason whatsoever, whether it’s because the person is a smoker, non-smoker, black, white, Catholic, Protestant, or because you simply don’t like his face.

Why should you lose this right merely because you erect a few more tables and sell food?

Or because you bake cakes, take pictures, plan weddings or conduct some other kind of commerce?

It’s still your property, paid for with your own money and created by the sweat of your own brow. Is a man’s home not his castle?

Of course, this all goes back to a Supreme Court ruling stating that private businesses can be viewed as “public accommodations,” which was a huge step toward the Marxist standard disallowing private property. And it has led to endless litigation, with the Boy Scouts sued by homosexuals, atheists and a girl (who wanted to be a “boy” scout); the PGA Tour sued by a handicapped golfer who wanted a dispensation from the rules; Abercrombie & Fitch sued by a Muslim woman who wanted to wear her hijab on the job; and Barnes & Noble sued by a male employee who claimed he suddenly was a female employee, just to name a few cases. It has also led, now, to some Americans being confronted with a Hobson’s choice: cast the exercise of your faith to the winds and bow before the government’s agenda, or kiss making a living goodbye.

Is all of this worth it just to stop less than one percent of the population from discriminating in unfashionable ways? And remember, freedom of association is like any other freedom: it’s only the unpopular exercise of it that needs protection. As for popular exercise, its popularity is usually protection enough.

As for Kasich’s desire for popularity, it’s pretty hard to achieve when your implied campaign slogan is “A chicken-hearted politician in every office and a coerced cupcake in every cupboard.”

11 Responses to Cupcake Kasich is a (Rather Dull) Tyrant Enabler

Lovely ending. I wonder what Herbert Hoover would think of Kasich’s stance. Note that in the Washington case (involving a photographer), the rejected customers (who were friends of the proprietors, and customers in other circumstances) made no complaint; but the “anti-discrimination” office in the state government heard about it, and (being run by the Demagogues, of course) chose to make an example of the couple running the photography shop.

Perhaps someone should point these minor details out to Kasich and see his response. Or ask him about Memories Pizza, attacked (and even threatened with violence) over a purely hypothetical question (since no one uses a pizzeria to cater a wedding of any sort).

To me, the only reason for any sort of anti-discrimination law (which is how such abuses are justified) is that some group faces serious problems that largely prevent it from (e.g.) being able to work. A case can be made that blacks faced such a problem in the 1960s, at least in many places. Do homosexuals today face such problems? If not, then there should be no anti-discrimination law for them. This would eliminate the whole problem, though it would anger the Lavender Thought Police. As a result, no Demagogue will ever accept this, nor any Republican eager to “stand tall in Georgetown” (like Kasich).

To me, the only reason for any sort of anti-discrimination law (which is how such abuses are justified) is that some group faces serious problems that largely prevent it from (e.g.) being able to work. A case can be made that blacks faced such a problem in the 1960s, at least in many places. Do homosexuals today face such problems? If not, then there should be no anti-discrimination law for them.text

To not provide a product or service to someone based upon their sexual behavior has been successfully equated with the kind of discrimination that blacks faced. The long campaign on TV, in movies, in government schools, and in the media to show “the good homosexual” has been extremely successful. Instead of showing the reality of homosexuality (which I believe is generally pretty awful and harmful), we have a dreamy substitute of two (generally white) normal-looking, attractive males standing hand-in-hand but who otherwise seem normal in every other way.

The battle has been lost. Your average low-information voter now knows only that he is the height of enlightened tolerance for holding these views. He or she can, and will, ofter no push-back to the enforcement of the homosexual agenda on the rest of us, which isn’t about tolerance but conformity.

That train has already left the station. Having signed onto the idea that not supporting the mainstreaming of homosexuality in any and every form is “discrimination,” your average low-information voter now has lost any means to fight back when that insane movement comes for them. And so we’ll see the body count rise. We’ll see a few people come to the microphone and say “I never thought promoting the equality of gays meant that the Boy Scout leader was free to the molest my boy” but it will be too little, too late. When you mainstream abnormalcy and call it “good,” you’ve jiggered the entire system. People are no longer able to even think about what is right. They just do what they think is popular. Once becoming used to being bullied, men (in particular) might as well hang their testicles up on a hook next to the door before leaving home.

That train has already left the station. Having signed onto the idea that not supporting the mainstreaming of homosexuality in any and every form is “discrimination,” your average low-information voter now has lost any means to fight back when that insane movement comes for them.

Again, at its base, this has to do with the loss of faith. The Left has been hacking away at sexual mores for a couple of hundred years. It took them a long time, but once the sexual revolution took place in the 1960’s and sex was officially separated from family, it was, in my opinion, inevitable that deviancy would become just another choice.

This type of thinking has been accepted by many Christians whole-heartedly.

Mr. Kung, I was reading an article by Linda Harvey the other day about why some Christians support Trump. She gave a lot of reasons. Some I agreed with, some I disagreed with, and many which could be called little better than reading tea leaves. But that’s what we do here. We try to figure things out. And Trump and his supporters are often difficult to figure out. You have to throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

One of Linda’s beliefs was that (my words, not her’s…I’m paraphrasing) there is a “redemptive” aspect to Trump among many Christians akin to the way Ted Kennedy worked. If you support such-and-such a cause then one’s personal transgressions are relieved. And for those who believe that “government is God,” Linda pointed out that the “prosperity gospel” leaders laid their hands on Trump and anointed him. Therefore if you equate God with a candidate who for whom charity is (without the meal-mouthed words) welfare, then you’re supporting God.

I think there’s a lot of hit and miss in what she wrote…a lot of miss, in particular. And notice how I’m (for me) rambling, seemingly without a coherent core to this particular post. And yet that’s what you get for trying to figure out Trump and/or Christians who support him.

I’ll be writing something soon about the inevitability of Trump and what conservatives should do and think about it. But there’s little doubt that the Left has chipped away at traditional beliefs and thus has eroded (and poisoned) faith in traditional things. And I don’t say this to shock anyone, but to have ass-fucking become mainstream and damn near required for you to support is quite a busting up of traditional things.

So, to me, Trump is kinda-sorta a way for those who have often softly identified as conservatives to move Left with the culture. And I’m not talking about Patricia who has her own concise stated reasons, many of which I quite agree with. But considering just how big of a liar and bully Trump appears to be, it’s difficult to reconcile his rise, particularly with Ted Cruz (a real conservative and a decent man) at the ready. One need not perform an act of desperation and vote for Trump. There is the perfectly viable Ted Cruz there.

But it is what it is. The culture has moved Left. Only the befuddled or the dishonest would try to call Trump a conservative. He’s not. What he is is more difficult to pin down. He’s not, of course, a life-long member of the political class. He may be for himself, but he’s not a one-track-mind politician with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. One can suppose that Hillary Clinton indeed does have an ideology she believes in. But I think most rational people understand that she’s in the same boat Ted Kennedy was in when he was asked why he was running for president and he hemmed and hawed and had no immediate answer. For Hillary, this is surely the case as well. It’s her thing. It’s her shtick. She is power running for more power. And the ideology is a useful way to get there.

Trump is Chris Christie, so Christie’s support is no surprise (although I admit I’m surprised). Trump, like Christie, will give off he air of being a non-conformist but who in actuality toes that line on 90% of the politically correct stuff out there. He’s not conservative. He liberal. He’s indeed politically correct on many things. And yet so far his sheer bravado has kept it from coalescing in people’s minds that you cannot possibly know what you’re voting for when you’re supporting this man. But we’re going to roll the dice and see.

But considering just how big of a liar and bully Trump appears to be, it’s difficult to reconcile his rise, particularly with Ted Cruz (a real conservative and a decent man) at the ready

I find many Trump supporters have a Kamikase attitude about things. Their motto seems to be, “Blow the f*@king place up even if we crash and burn. Bansai!!!!”

And while I can understand and agree with some of the reasons people might like Trump, as I said before, they do not hold Trump to the same standard that they hold others as regard personal honesty and demeanor. That is fact.

Here is one of Trump’s more recent musings now that Rubio has become the latest target of his bile.

Trump also says that Cruz is “tougher” and “smarter” than Rubio. He says Cruz’s lies are at least “reasonable” while Rubio is just a “lightweight” and a “low-life.”

So Cruz ain’t so bad after all. I still hope for a Trump/Cruz team. Logically speaking, that would make thousands of Trumpkin noggins explode. But since intellectual consistency is not a Trumpkin attribute, there is no need to fear.

I have no idea who the Trumpkins want as VP. But it is sad that they so easily believe the slanders of Cruz. Cruz is a good man. And maybe Trump, if he becomes president, will show there is competence behind his bravado. But no sane person can truly believe they know what Trump plans to do, given his many evasions, contradictions, lies, and scarcity of specifics. I fear the reason many support Trump is The Leadership Principle. They are elevating themselves (or trying to) in a cult of personality.

Your last line shows why the Trumpbots believe his smears of Cruz. As with the Black God, if he said the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east, his cultists would believe it — and denounce anyone who challenges his pronouncement.

My concern is that the Obamanation’s disregard for constitutional limits combined with the Republican Congress’ surrender of their constitutional rights and duties, has set a very bad precedent which future presidents will probably abuse.

“Government wouldn’t even consider compelling participation in the above, or in events celebrating adultery, fornication, polygamy (yet) or auto-eroticism. ”

Your sentence frightens the S out of me! Giving these idiots ideas that they may not have thought of is worrisome. Two biggies that you left out are bestiality and incest. There, that ought help eff up the country even more. Nothing surprises me anymore by either government or private persons.

A very understandable concern. Many liberals will happily use any weapon against active supporters of Judeo-Christian morality (though they won’t impose it on Muslims, for the obvious reason that the Muslims would fight back a little more violently than the Jews and Christians would).

Bill of Rights

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.